Two weeks before Bethlehem

Christmas is two weeks away. The Christmas season is about a week shorter this year because of a late Thanksgiving. Unlike the Thursday for Thanksgiving, Christmas is always celebrated on December 25, regardless of the day. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Maybe we should move Christmas back a week this year.” I’ve never heard anyone say, “We should celebrate Christmas on a Saturday or in the spring this year.”

The Christmas season has become a retail calendar with Black Friday sales that last a month. Christmas is about warm clothes, warm fires, snowflakes, candy canes, Christmas lights, and an ever-increasing number of inflatables. None of that sounds like something we should celebrate in the spring. Texans can’t even imagine snowflakes in the spring and with our winds the inflatables would be at least five houses down the road. I think the December 25 date is unchangeable in our culture, at least for now.

What were Mary and Joseph doing two weeks before Bethlehem?

Much of our time is measured by our clocks and calendars. Mary and Joseph had a deadline, too, that first Christmas. The Roman government had set a time for the census, and it didn’t matter that Mary was expecting her baby any day. The trip to Bethlehem was about 90 miles, and Mary and Joseph had to plan for all the possibilities. 

Nothing is ever said in Scripture about Mary’s family. I know times were different in the first century, but some things are common to every generation. If Mary’s mom were still alive, she would have been concerned about her young daughter making that trip. She would have wanted to make sure she had packed everything she might need for the trip, the baby’s birth, and the extra time and supplies it would take her to travel those ninety miles. 

If all the planning was Joseph’s responsibility, I imagine he was getting a ton of advice from the women of Nazareth about carefully planning for all possibilities. The two weeks before Christmas were tough for Mary and Joseph. It kind of puts all of our Christmas preparations in perspective, doesn’t it?

Is it time to make some adjustments to your Christmas plans?

Do the weather reports indicate that Christmas travel might mean spending the holiday in an airport or hotel this year? Is there someone you can’t or shouldn’t leave behind? Has your life become a little too busy and stressed because it is only fourteen days until Christmas?

Are the kids too focused on gifts and not focused enough on school? Are we too focused on the calendar instead of Christ? It happens every year until we decide to change the way we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

When Satan can’t have your soul, he settles for your time. When he can’t make you bad, he tries to make you busy. When your eternity belongs to God, Satan will settle for influencing your time on earth.

I wrote about Mary and Martha last week. Have you become worried and anxious about many things? If so, choose to delete a few things so you can sit quietly at the manger and spend time with the best part of Christmas.

Two weeks became two years or more

Joseph and Mary would have packed plenty of supplies and carried all their money. They would have done their best to stay with others in a group, but there’s a good chance Mary’s pregnancy slowed them down. It isn’t surprising that they arrived in Bethlehem and found there was “no room in the inn.”

Joseph and Mary’s plans were made with care but not with certainty. That young and newly married couple had no way of knowing that they would not return to their home in Nazareth for more than two years. They would not have packed or planned for the months they remained in Bethlehem or their future escape to Egypt.

Jeremiah 29:11 is a well-known, often-quoted verse. God told the prophet, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). Joseph and Mary were faithful, righteous children of God. They would have been aware of the uncertainties but also known to trust God’s promises.

The rest of God’s message for Mary and Joseph

Mary and Joseph had both experienced the miraculous, and their faith and trust in God would have been strengthened as a result. Two weeks before Bethlehem, their knowledge of God’s promise to Jeremiah would have comforted their thoughts.

God had promised Jeremiah that his plans were for his children’s good, not their harm. The rest of God’s message to Jeremiah was just as important as the words found in verse 11. God also said, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:13–14).

I wonder if Joseph and Mary talked about those words as they fled in the night toward Egypt, praying for their safety and the safety of their infant son. I wonder if Mary and Joseph were able to get word to their families and friends back in Nazareth. 

Times were so different in the first century, yet the things that matter most apply to every generation.

It’s two weeks until “Bethlehem”

What plans have you made that need to be adjusted to choose God’s plan for your Christmas? His plan is to prosper you, not to harm you. His plan is best for your hope and your future. He has promised to hear you when you pray. He has promised to come to you and provide what you need. He has promised to anticipate the needs you don’t even know to pray for today.

Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Those gifts from the magi were essentially the provision they needed to travel and live in a foreign country until it was safe to come home.

God knows what you need today for the Christmas you will celebrate in two weeks. Are you having the “Mary Christmas” we talked about last week, or is the Martha within trying to take over?

I hope you will plan to sit at the feet of Jesus and trust the God who always provides for his kids. His plan for your Christmas is best. Do you need to be still and invite him to come and provide it? 

Call on him in prayer, then trust that the baby in the manger has listened.

Bethlehem today

Mary and Joseph probably traveled about a week to reach Bethlehem in time for the census. Mary, in her ninth month of pregnancy, would have needed to rest often while making the ninety-mile journey. Today, a war is raging about forty-five miles from the small city of Bethlehem. 

It seems that this year, once again, Bethlehem will be known as having no rooms in their city for the pilgrims to stay. 

How Bethlehem is different today

When Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem, it would have been a city that existed largely because of the shepherds. Located six miles from Jerusalem, it was a favorite stop for the Jewish pilgrims on their way to the temple. I found an interesting article that said even today, “The economy of Bethlehem is based on pilgrimages and tourism,” but “90% of the workforce is not receiving salaries” during these tense days of war. 

I’ve been to Bethlehem several times. We took tour groups to the city to see the church believed to have been built over the cave system that likely would have been used to “stable” the animals, therefore the likely birthplace of Jesus. 

The streets of the city are lined with stores selling all kinds of souvenirs and products from the Holy Land. We always took our group to a favorite store that sold hand-carved nativity sets and other products made out of native olive wood. My husband, Jim, is good friends with the man whose family owns that store as well as a hotel and restaurant in the city. 

Normally at this time of the year, the streets of Bethlehem and the stores are extremely crowded with pilgrims from all around the world. This Christmas, the hotels are housing people who have fled from the war zone and their homes. This year the stores are closed and sit quietly abandoned. 

The city is under Palestinian control, although some of the residents are Israeli. The entrance to the city has always been gated and guarded by Palestinian soldiers who were armed and ready for an attack. The attack occurred about fifty miles outside of Bethlehem and was organized by a faction of their own people.  

Bethlehem had just begun to recover from the shutdown of Christmas 2020, and it cannot be known how long this current war will continue. We can’t know what Bethlehem will look like next Christmas.

A baby named Hope 

The article talked about a hospital located about 1,500 steps from the church which exists to mark the birthplace of Christ, describing it as “the premier maternity hospital and neonatal critical care center in the Bethlehem region of the West Bank.” 

When war broke out, the roads were blockaded, making it difficult for the hospital to receive necessary supplies. A woman named Nadeem was in her ninth month, expecting her third child. She noticed she had not felt the baby move for a while, but she had been afraid to mention it because she didn’t want a large hospital bill during these difficult times. She finally mentioned her concerns to her husband, and he took her to the hospital. 

Nadeem was quickly admitted in order to receive an emergency C-section. When her daughter was delivered, she was gray and unresponsive. The team of doctors continued to work on her until suddenly a small cry filled the room. The baby was placed in the NICU, and Nadeem couldn’t stop thanking the staff. They had gathered to pray for her baby, and Nadeem credited her daughter’s life to their prayers. 

The baby girl was named Amal, which means “hope” in Arabic. One of the doctors who delivered Amal said, “The birth of her baby brought her hope in this time of terrible war and the loss of so many lives. There is a new baby in Bethlehem and it gives her hope that this will pass.” 

The hope of Bethlehem

Bethlehem is a small picture of the conflict that seems to exist across the entire world today. The citizens are very different people who, by necessity, need to learn to coexist peacefully with one another. It is a picture of why Jesus chose to step out of heaven to be born in a Bethlehem stable. 

Paul was writing his letter of theology to Rome. He quoted the prophet Isaiah who had prophesied seven hundred years before the first coming of Christ. Paul reminded the church in Rome and reminds us today of the reason Jesus was born. Romans 15:12 says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” 

I wonder, as Nadeem was listening for the cry of her baby and listening to the prayers being lifted to God by the hospital staff around her, if she knew the One who is our hope, the babe of Bethlehem. I wonder if she named her baby Amal because she understood the great need of her people is the hope Jesus was born to give all people. 

Pray for the people of the Holy Land to find their hope 

Jesus came to save the people who are fighting on both sides of this war. Paul said the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:16–17).  

We need to pray for the people of Bethlehem to seek God’s righteousness. We need to pray for all the lost. God gave his Son so that all could be saved. The hope of the world is Jesus. It always has been and that won’t change until the next time Jesus comes. That day our hope in heaven will be fulfilled in Christ. 

Paul wrote a prayer of blessing to the church in Rome that would be his prayer for the world today: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). 

As we pray for our Christmas season, let’s pray for a small baby in Bethlehem named Amal and all that surrounds her tiny, fragile life. How would the God of hope want us to pray for everyone involved in this war? 

God is able to redeem the worst of times for his purpose, for his glory. Our world needs to know the Savior. As Christians, we are called to share the gospel, the good news of Christ.  

To whom will you offer the hope of Christmas this week? 

“To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

P.S. If you want to know more about all that is happening in Israel, I encourage you to download my husband’s recent ebook for free, The War In Israel: What You Need to Know about This Crisis of Global Significance.